GSK Ignoring MHRA On Heart Attack Drug

In a secret meeting MHRA recently voted to remove a drug which causes heart attacks in the UK. But their decision was never made public – and its instructions are being ignored by British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline.

Panorama last night revealed that Avandia, a drug which costs 20 times as much as older diabetes treatment, doubles the risk of heart failure. Yet not only did GSK continue to sell the drug, they also appeared anxious to avoid any discussion or scrutiny.

“Frankly, the last thing we want to do is get into a public debate,” GSK chief medical officer was taped as saying.

Previously, the MHRA has accepted GSK studies on trust. However, US regulators found that the GSK had manipulated studies to obtain the results they wanted.

The company also suppressed studies that were not in its favour, stating in an internal email:

“These put Avandia in quite a negative light… we would hope these do not see the light of day.”

The programme also found that doctors who wrote the most favourable reviews of Avandia had been paid by GSK.

Author:About Andrew Nicholson

3 thoughts on “GSK Ignoring MHRA On Heart Attack Drug”

An interesting detail of the corruption within the pharmaceutical industry and its regulators, and how money is far more important than lives.

If saving lives, and public health in general, had any real importance, e-cigarettes would be fast-tracked to open sale and even be promoted by government. Some hope of that ever happening. There’s far more money in suppressing them and burying the true facts – along with the smokers when they finally drop, after paying through the nose all their (shortened) lives.

I suppose we only need to wait until the UK government agencies go the same way as the US ones. The FDA is reckoned to be the most corrupt large government agency in the world by those in the know, and that includes plenty of doctors and judges in the US. Looks like we’re headed back to the days of the 1930s, when criminal organisations ran things. Now it’s giant PLCs and LLCs and their lapdogs in government.

What fabulous irony when the FDA and MHRA are in charge of public health…